ADDRESS OF REV. T. P. PRUDDEN.
Assuming that the church work of the Association was not for sectarian propagandism, but for saving men from sin and its consequences, he proceeded:
Is it not evident, first of all, that the Church of Christ is the great and divinely ordained instrument for establishing the Kingdom of God? Schools are undoubtedly instruments. But their place is to supplement, not supplant, the Church. In that long line of Christian work which, beginning at Jerusalem, has well-nigh encircled the world, has not the Church of Christ been the chief machinery through which the good seed of the Gospel has been sown and the crop harvested, through which Christ’s servants have done his work, through which a goodly influence has been exerted, and through which Christian institutions have been founded and preserved? We are seeking the civilization of a down-trodden race, but what force was ever such a civilizer as the Christian Church?
Church work is necessary if we are to retain and conserve the results of school work. Let secular education train a man, and he becomes more polished and better equipped for life and work. He has greater power, but it may be a power for sin and selfishness, as truly as for God and righteousness. Let Christian education work upon him as it does in the schools of this Association, he is still more polished, he has a spiritual life. Not when in school, but when the school is left, is the Church most necessary. The influence of the college cannot be about a man in his home, the influence of the Church can. The help of a teacher is transient, the help of a pastor and the associations of a church are permanent. To expect these to retain the best fruits of that Christian education which this Association is so widely diffusing, unless churches take up, and carry on what the schools have begun, is to expect more of the colored race, with its inheritance of degradation, and slavery and little training, than we expect of the white race with its inheritance of Christianity and freedom, and abundant training.
Closely allied to this is the need of church work to withstand the evils that are incident to awakened thought and increased knowledge. The air is laden with a sentiment of irreligion. Educating a freedman is breaking up the hard sod of ignorance in which such seeds of evil fall without taking root, providing instead a soil that is very receptive.
As our educational work is, and must be, destructive of the religion of the old slave days, it becomes more emphatically our duty to provide a positive and intelligent religion to take the place of that which we destroy. Not to do so is to bring a possible curse along with our good. Moreover, churches must furnish zealous men and woman, whom education may prepare to do the Lord’s work. It is not enough to rely upon the possibility of conversion while the students are in college. The Church has an earlier and a broader opportunity. It forms the homes and the influences that form the children. A vast proportion of the pastors and missionaries of the North have gone to college as Christians, instead of becoming Christians when there. They have come from Christian homes. They were sent by Christian parents whose love for God and man was planted and trained in Christ’s Church.
And, brethren, need I remind you that we are sowing for a slowly maturing harvest.
The special work for the colored race to do in this country and in Africa is appalling, by reason of its vastness. And when we ask how it shall be done, I affirm that the churches of Christ in the South are to be great instruments. Successful foreign missions require vigorous home missions. Do you smile at the idea of these feeble churches ever furnishing financial support? One of them is reported this year as giving $90 to this Association, $70 to the American Board, $77 to home missions, while it spent $687 for itself.
The time of defense and apology for church work is passed. It is no longer an experiment. The night of doubt and preparation has gone. The morning of small things when, waiting for more abundant light, we moved with commendable slowness, has opened and glided on into the broad full day. Now we can do what we never could before.